The government has taken a policy decision on private sector participation in inland water transport and announced several sops to augment it. The sops for this sector include tax exemption similar to national highways, vessel building subsidy of 30 per cent and customs duty concessions, an official statement said here.
Other concessions include automatic foreign direct investment (FDI) up to 100 per cent equity for infrastructure sector applicable to inland water transport, external commercial borrowings, issue of public bonds by Inland Waterways Authority of India (IWAI), joint venture by IWAI and government's equity participation on build-operate-transfer (BOT) basis.
Also, IWAI is being authorised to raise bonds to enable it to borrow from the market for funding inland water transport; the authority has also been authorised to enter into commercial and joint ventures to further encourage investment in this sector. (Our Economy Bureau)
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In addition, equity participation of government/IWAI has been limited to 40 per cent for BOT projects, it said.
The government has also decided to grant 100 per cent tax exemption to investors in inland water transport for five years and further 30 per cent tax exemption permissible under the IT Act to be availed of in the next five years, within a period of 20 years, as in the case of national highways.
Also, a scheme would be operationalised to provide vessel building subsidy of 30 per cent to ship owners for inland vessels built in Indian shipyards to encourage inland water transport fleet expansion.
The government has also approved customs duty concessions for imported equipment and machinery for the development of inland waterway. Under this scheme, a minimum customs duty will be levied.
Also, government will put up and maintain navigational aids with private sector participation in addition to provisions for pilotage services.